Tejashwi draws parallel between government formation in Maha and Bihar

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav on Monday remarked that the turn of events in Maharashtra reminded him the dramatic political turnaround in Bihar two years ago that left his party stripped of power and himself of the Deputy Chief Ministers post in an unceremonious fashion. The younger son of Lalu Prasad also trained his guns at Sushil Kumar Modi and said that had the RJD joined hands with the BJP "he (Modi) would have still been the Deputy CM but serving under a Chief Minister of our party".

Tejashwi draws a parallel between Maha and Bihar

"Indeed, the events in Maharashtra remind me of the hijacking of the popular mandate that we had witnessed in Bihar in 2017. The BJP has played this game in many states, an example being Goa. "Now that the matter is sub judice I would not like to comment much but wait for the Supreme Courts verdict", Yadav who is the leader of the opposition in the state assembly told reporters outside the House.

He was replying to queries about the early morning swearing-in of Devendra Fadnavis as Chief Minister and NCPs Ajit Pawar as his deputy bearing an uncanny resemblance to Nitish Kumar resigning on a July evening two years ago only to take oath again in less than 24 hours and forming a new government with the support of the BJP.

Kumar had taken the step after Yadav's name got embroiled in a money-laundering scam and the RJD stoutly rejected demands for his resignation. Kumar and Prasad had ended decades of bitter rivalry to contest the assembly polls as allies in 2015, along with the Congress. The Grand Alliance that thus came into being won a handsome victory, trouncing the BJP-led NDA.

Yadav, whom Prasad has named his heir apparent, also took potshots at Modi for his recent tweet wherein the Deputy CM had defended the developments in the western state taking place in unearthly hours with the remark "many great things, including the Independence and the lowering of the Union Jack, had taken place in the thick of the night".

"If Sushil Modi thinks that way, we are fine by it. But let me remind him that we too had the option of forming a government after joining hands with the BJP but we chose to stick to ideology and principles. Had we decided otherwise, Modi would still have been the Deputy CM, but serving under an RJD CM', Yadav remarked sarcastically.

Incidentally, Sushil Modi had claimed during the Lok Sabha polls this year that Nitish Kumar's exit from the grand alliance had come months after a meeting Prasad had with the late Union minister Arun Jaitley. During the meeting, Prasad had offered to topple the government headed by the JD(U) national president and help the BJP come to power in the state in exchange for the Centre going easy on numerous corruption cases against the family members of the RJD supremo, he had asserted. Modi's claim has been dismissed by the RJD, which has been stating that it was the saffron party which had come forward with the offer of a tie-up which Prasad had turned down because of his unflinching commitment to secularism.

READ | Maharashtra: Voter seeks HC direction to BJP, Sena to form government

READ | Sanjay Dhotre reacts to the Maharashtra political crisis